PCI BUS OVERCLOCKING PREVENTING STABILITY AT 1 GIG?

[Rainmaker]

I have a c600@1008, retail hsf and voltage. As you can see I got a great chip. Problem is when I try to play dvds or vcds, error messages appear with the 1st 2 tries and hang-up on the next one. It can't be my old reliable creative tnt because I know it can handle 95 mhz. Can't be the chip because I have no problem running seti or prime95 for hours on end. I think the problem is with my realmagic dvd decoder not being able to handle the 37mhz pci bus speed. Anybody else have this card and problem? Any workarounds?

[Fro]

umm, my dxr3 runs at 36mhz...

[outhouse]

Does the PC lock when playing games? if so you can try to get in your registry and disable sideband if you have the option and this helps to make your system more stable. have you tried taking your FSB down to see where this problem happens? You have quite a good overclock for a retail heatsink fan, do you know your temp's on your processor? sometimes a chip gets to a certain temp and it will loose stability, I can run seti all day and night but system will lock when playing games if my FSB is to high, there graphic intense like DVD's. just my two cents hope it helps.

[Rainmaker]

No, I don't get lock-ups in 3d games. W/ Seti running, temps get as high as 43 deg. cpu with ambient temp at 40 deg (summer in the Philippines). I can run Seti all night and day and yet lock up the moment I try to run realmagic's dvd station. No problems at 945 mhz. I experience the same problems at 988 mhz. Used to have to reinstall video drivers after hang-ups, now not needed.

[Rainmaker]

No, I don't get lock-ups in 3d games. W/ Seti running, temps get as high as 43 deg. cpu with ambient temp at 40 deg (summer in the Philippines). I can run Seti all night and day and yet lock up the moment I try to run realmagic's dvd station. No problems at 945 Mhz.

[Carmine_Paterno]

Your registry can be holding you back, format and reinstall, and see if that fixes it. A while ago i just had to format to up my 600 to 983 from 900.

[Lancelot]

Try upping the Vio if your mobo offers it. When using your decoder card there's a gigantic datastream over the PCI bus via the chipset. I had lockups when grabbing video (.AVI) files while my system was solid when gaming, and with SETI and 3DMark etc. Upping the Vio solved the problem for me.

[Rainmaker]

I have a Soyo 6ba+III. No vio adjustments but the vio voltage is 3.55 by default instead of 3.33.

[Rainmaker]

Just bumped up to 1020 Mhz still at default voltage and w/ retail hsf. I guess I just have to go down to 900 to run dvds. Unless anybody knows any software to change vio.

[bdf24]

Have you tried lowering your dma mode for your DVD Rom. I know for my cdrw I had major problems while burning disks with the default DMA Mode settings while overclocked to 1 gig, at 960 would run fine! I lowered it to mode 2 for both of my cdrw's and it fixed the problem.

also another thing you could try is upping your core voltage a bit to see if it takes care of the problem? Might not help but it's worth a shot.

[Rainmaker]

I wasn't able to think about lowering dma for my dvd rom since I haven't enabled dma transfers in windows though the bios setting is at udma 2. I'll try to go to pio 4 and see what happens. Thanks.

[Rainmaker]

Tried lowering my dvd rom's transfer rates. Still no go. My decoder card seems to be the problem still.

[bdf24]

Are you able to change your PCI bus speed from 1\3 to 1\4 of your fsb? If you can that will fix it. Your PCI bus would only be running around 28mhz but that should be fine.

[Rainmaker]

The options for pci bus ratios for fsbs below 100 mhz are only at 2/3 and 1. 1/3 and 1/4 kick in automatically at 100 and 133 Mhz and at preset options below 100.

I guess I'm left with lowering clock speed to just 945 (not complaining) when watching dvds.

Thanks guys.

[Wunder]

Why using the dvd card at all? youre system is powerful enough to decode a dvd with software only, and your tnt would help some. the only thing is you cant output the picture to a tv unless the tnt card has tvout.

[Rainmaker]

I'm using this particular dvd card because of its excellent tv-out capabilities. Also I originally had a c366@550 in my system.

BTW, the manipulable dividers I gave above are agp not pci. Pci dividers in my board are preset.

[Rainmaker]

I now have the chip at 1053 (1.9 V, retail hsf) after burning in for several days at 1020. Can go to 1100 but at 2.1 v. Too high for my taste. Waiting for an alpha. This chip could possibly go higher aircooled!

[Phil]

have a look how hot the chips on the decoder get when running (simply touching will do just be careful) they are probabally getting quite warm, comsider using some heatsinks on the chips that get hot or even just a card cooler blowing across them, I have an old agp card that is funny with a 75mhz agp bus, I stuck a heatsink on the vid chip and it now works fine

[Rainmaker]

I think I will just do a long delayed graphics card upgrade. Does anybody know any non-overclock friendly Geforce MX that I can avoid?

Also, I think I'm going to add to my hard drive capacity. I only have quantums. Had a maxtor die on me a while back. The more accessible brand here in the Philippines is Seagate. Has anybody had any problems with this brand especially at 39-40 mhz pci?